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From: Rob Nicholson on 17 Oct 2007 05:00
This is mad!! I've got my HTC S710 configured to download my Google Mail
(via wireless). I've just forwarded three emails, the 1st with an Excel
document, the 2nd with a PowerPoint document and the 3rd with a Word
document.

The Excel email is small enough (<50k) to download. The PowerPoint and Word
emails are >50k and therefore when you open them you have to check the
"Download attachments" and then manually trigger a send/receive (or wait for
the next automatic sync period).

The attachments download fine, can be opened and viewed on screen.

HOWEVER, once they've been downloaded, WM6 *deletes* the copy from the Gmail
POP3 server. It shouldn't do this at all - ever!! The only time email is
deleted from the server should be when Outlook downloads it at home. This
appears to work except when you manually download the attachments.

The problem is that Gmail on mobiles is configured to also delete the local
copy if it's disappeared off the server.

So what happens is:

1. Email downloads without attachment - copy stays on server
2. Manual download of attachment occurs - deletes copy off server
3. Automatic re-sync occurs a shortwhile later and DELETES COPY OFF THE
MOBILE

So the email is effectively lost at this point. Of course, GMail is really
handy as it keeps all your emails for you so I've not lost anything as such
but you have to remember it was there and go searching for it.

Sounds like a big bug to me...

Cheers, Rob.


From: Rob Nicholson on 17 Oct 2007 05:06
> So what happens is:
>
> 1. Email downloads without attachment - copy stays on server
> 2. Manual download of attachment occurs - deletes copy off server
> 3. Automatic re-sync occurs a shortwhile later and DELETES COPY OFF THE
> MOBILE
>
> So the email is effectively lost at this point. Of course, GMail is really
> handy as it keeps all your emails for you so I've not lost anything as
> such but you have to remember it was there and go searching for it.
>
> Sounds like a big bug to me...

I've just change the email to download the entire message but now it
*deletes* the message off the server immediately after it's downloaded. Then
when the next automatic sync occurs, it deletes the local copy as well.

This is bad ;-)

Cheers, Rob.


From: Rob Nicholson on 17 Oct 2007 05:16
> This is bad ;-)

Hmm, this is possibly a quirk with Gmails POP3 implementation. Gmail is
configured by default to "Archive message when accessed via POP". It was
definitely leaving emails on the server before (otherwise I'd be loosing a
lot of my emails) so I can only assume that the mail system on the WM6
device wasn't triggering this "Archive message when accessed via POP" but
only sometimes. When I manually tell it to download the message's
attachments, it is accessing via POP3 and therefore GMail (incorrectly)
deletes the message off the server.

I've changed it to "Leave copy in inbox" in the hope that Outlook when it
downloads it, will manually delete it using the POP3 DELE command.

Hmm...

Rob.


From: Rob Nicholson on 17 Oct 2007 05:28
> I've changed it to "Leave copy in inbox" in the hope that Outlook when it
> downloads it, will manually delete it using the POP3 DELE command.

Okay, so that's now leaving a copy on in the GMail inbox so at least I won't
loose it.

But now, once it's been downloaded to WM6 and read, it disappears from the
mobile. But it's only happening with certain emails, not all of them.
There's still two emails in the mobile inbox (the small one with Excel
attachment and an email from silicon.com).

I'm still going to suspect it's GMail's POP3 implementation that's at fault.
What appears to be happening is that once the email has been downloaded from
GMail, GMail is then hiding it from future POP3 scans and therefore WM6
thinks that it's been deleted off the server and therefore deletes it's
local copy. I think this is wrong! :-) It should be upto the POP3 client to
work out whether it's a new message by checking the message ID.

Maybe I can fix it by getting GMail to forward to another POP3 account (a
spare one at NTL for example) and then download from there.

Cheers, Rob.



From: Rob Nicholson on 17 Oct 2007 05:52
> I'm still going to suspect it's GMail's POP3 implementation that's at
> fault.

Realising I'm talking to myself but I suspect that WM6 and GMail are
incompatible with each other due to the way both of them works with GMail
probably been the non-standard implementation.

With POP3, deleting of messages off the server is the remit of the POP3
email client. Outlook, for example, has an option to leave email on the
server. This controls whether the POP3 client issues the DELE command (to
delete the email) or not.

GMail is non-standard in that it effectively *deletes* the email itself when
it has been retrieved whether or not the POP3 client issues the DELE
command.

Even if you change GMail's setting to "Leave a copy in the inbox", it knows
it has been retrieved and therefore when the POP3 client next queries the
list of messages, anything previously downloaded is not returned.

Quite why Google felt they had to re-interpret the POP3 standard is beyond
me :-) They need to implement a fourth option in their POP3 settings that
says "Do nothing" when the message is retrieved. They also probably need to
respond correctly to the DELE command as if you have the setting on "Leave
copy in inbox", it doesn't matter how many times the POP3 client tries to
DELE it, it stays there. Actually, the POP3 client doesn't get to know about
it ever again after it's been downloaded.

So the net effect is that once a WM6 device downloads it, the email is lost
to any other POP3 client like your copy of Outlook at home.

So don't use WM6 email with GMail POP3...

Rob.


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